Germany Nuclear Energy 2011

Germany the poster child for renewable energy sourcing close to half of its electricity from renewable sources plans to close all of its nuclear power plants by 2022 its coal fired plants.

Germany nuclear energy 2011.

It is also the world s third country by installed wind power capacity at 59 gw in 2018 and second for offshore wind with over 4 gw. German scientists are now hunting for somewhere to bury almost 2 000 containers of high level radioactive waste for the next million years. In september 2011 siemens which had been responsible for constructing all 17 of germany s existing nuclear power plants announced that it would exit the nuclear sector following the fukushima disaster and the subsequent changes to german energy policy. After the nuclear accident at the fukushima nuclear plant in japan in 2011 chancellor angela merkel ordered the atomausstieg the exit from nuclear energy once and for all.

Germany says all of its nuclear power plants will be shut by 2022 in the wake of the fukushima crisis in japan reversing an earlier policy. Angela merkel suddenly switched positions from the planned extension of the operating licenses of german nuclear power plants to the declaration that germany was going to end nuclear energy in. Germany wants to curb greenhouse gas emissions but at the same time will shut down all of its nuclear power stations which in the year 2000 had a 29 5 per cent share of the power generation mix. Germany has been called the world s first major renewable energy economy.

In the 1970s with fears of unstable and rising oil prices and uncertainty around energy supply nuclear power enjoyed strong support in germany. It will no longer build nuclear power plants anywhere in the world. In 2016 the share was down to 13 percent and by 2022 all nuclear plants are supposed to be offline the country now seems on track to fill the gap with renewable energy. The figure is now about 12 from seven reactors while over 40 of electricity comes from coal the majority of that from lignite.

Opposition to nuclear power began in 1975 with the protests at the construction site of the proposed wyhl reactor. Renewable energy in germany is mainly based on wind solar and biomass. Germany had the world s largest photovoltaic installed capacity until 2014 and as of 2020 it has 49 gw.